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Ten music writers reflect on the records they loved this year

Bandcamp / Buy On Merlynn Belle, Tele Novella offer a ticket to a time-traveling ghost town tour. The Lockhart, Texas band’s second album shifts easily between style, genre, and time period, moving from folky Americana to Renaissance-esque ditties, from cabaret ballads to baroque pop and psychedelic rock, from the Old West to a previous century. Ultimately, Merlynn Belle is about grief, loss, and longing, conjuring its subjects as if through a Ouija board: We hear about a witch who...